Hornets battle heat as in-school practice schedule commences

The hottest days of the summer appear to have held off until the start of school as temperatures reached the mid-90’s Monday and today. With heat indices reaching triple digits creating even greater heat on the artificial turf at Bryant Stadium, the Bryant Hornets football team eased up a bit today after practicing under withering conditions on Monday.

Head coach Paul Calley had said he was looking forward to a little warmer weather to test his players’ conditioning but on Tuesday, he said, “Yesterday, it wasn’t a good thing. We had several suffer from heat symptoms. A lot of it was due to improper hydration and not eating breakfast or eating lunch. That leads to it.”

So the Hornets didn’t work as long with more breaks on Tuesday.

“We’ve got some guys that are suffering from minor injuries, nagging injuries that missed practice but it does give us a chance to get the younger guys in, get them ready,” he mentioned.

“The first week of school is tough,” the coach said. “It’s tough on them. They’re not used to putting in a full day.”

The team will play in the annual Blue-White scrimmage at Fan Fair on Friday with the JV scrimmaging at 6:30 and the varsity at 7 p.m. Prior to that, the middle school eighth grade teams will scrimmage against each other starting at 5:15 then the freshman team will play Blue-White at 6. (Admission is $3 with no reserved seating. Spirit squads will perform and be introduced as well.)

Asked about the emphasis in this week’s practice, Calley said, “We’re working on it all, working on special teams. Defensively, we’re really focused on tackling right now, making sure we get all our tackle circuits in. Offensively, we’re working on multiple fronts, different defenses.

“We sprinkled in a little P.A. (Pulaski Academy) stuff yesterday so we’re ready for the scrimmage,” he added, referring to the team’s benefit game opponent on Tuesday, Aug. 26. “More Benton than anything. We’ve seen our defense a lot. We’ve seen a four-down front. We’re working on more three-down or a slide three front.”